News for employers

We regularly get asked how many people have unspent convictions. Since the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act was amended in March 2014, the number of people whose conviction is unspent is expected to have reduced significantly, but nobody really knows by how much. So, as a first attempt, we’ve pulled together some data which tries to

We’re pleased to hear that the DBS has today sent out a news update about their application forms, following Unlock’s complaint to the ICO. In March 2014, the DBS announced that they were changing the question on their application form after a complaint by Unlock to the ICO. The complaint was about the DBS’s failure

Last night we contributed to a discussion on BBC Radio West Midlands, which looked at the case of Natalie Atkinson, and looked at the role of employers in giving people with convictions a second chance. You can listen to the programme below:

We’ve learnt today that the Ministry of Justice are planning to bring section 56 of the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998 into force on the 1st December 2014. There’s more information about this in an update on our Information Hub.

Christopher Stacey, Co-Director, Unlock comments on the issues discussed in a recent Ban the Box webinar. Quite rightly, the Ban the Box campaign is focused on a specific issue, that being the tick-box that appears on many job application forms, frightening the life out of somebody who has a criminal record. Many people with convictions see

We’re pleased to report that the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has today issued a press release which sets out their ruling that the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) has breached the Data Protection Action after failing to stop collecting information about criminal conviction data that was no longer required because of a filtering regime that

In the last couple of days, we’ve been very busy. We’ve been working hard to raise awareness of the changes to the ROA. Yesterday (10th March) we appeared on BBC Breakfast. We also took part in a number of regional radio discussions, including BBC London, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Leeds, BBC Coventry, BBC West Midlands,

Today is an historic day for Unlock. We’ve campaigned for many years to see changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. It’s the first time in nearly 40 years since the legislation has been reformed in this way. It’s been quite a wait since the law received Royal Assent in 2012, but we’re delighted that

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act has changed for the first time in 40 years The DBS now has a system for ‘filtering’ cautions and convictions Do you know how these can benefit your clients who have convictions? In response to the changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 coming into force on the 10th

We’re delighted that, having campaigned for many years, the 10th March 2014 will finally see reforms to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 come into force. This means that many people will find that their conviction becomes ‘spent’ a lot sooner than it did previously. It only applies in England and Wales, but the changes

Today we delivered a webinar in partnership with Business in the Community, titled ‘Ban the Ban – the legal stuff’ where we briefly covered the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Read more about the webinar and download a copy of the slides.